1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an automatic telephone dialer embodied in a thin, compact, card-like device. The dialer contains memory to store telephone numbers or code numbers as well as circuitry to generate tones understood by the telephone network as dial signals.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Automatic dialers, devices which store one or more telephone numbers and when desired, upon a user's command, retrieve a number sequence and generate (or cause a telephone to generate) a set of audio signals corresponding to the desired telephone number, have been disclosed in the prior art. Typical of these prior art devices is the device disclosed in U S. Pat. No. 3,124,659 to Andregg, et al. which discloses an electromechanical device using a card having series of holes for encoding the telephone number thereon. Once the card is inserted into the device, electrical contacts are made through the card holes, an appropriate series of signals being generated as the holes pass through the series of spring like contacts. In this type of a device, the card serves merely as data storage and is not be itself capable of generating signals understood by the telephone line, but requires a special electromechanical reading device to be used This limits its use as an automatic dialer. U.S. Pat. No. 3,870,830 to Liu discloses an optical reader which uses a card with series of holes encoding the telephone number(s). When the user inserts the card into a slot of a telephone apparatus incorporating the optical reader, the reader decodes the series of holes in the card as a telephone number. In this type of a device the card serves merely to store data and is not by itself capable of generating signals understood by the telephone line. This limits its use as an automatic dialer because of modification of conventional telephones which would be required. U.S. Pat. No. 3,727,010 to Furjama et al. discloses a device which uses photocells as means of decoding the number information formed as holes on a card. U.S. Pat. No 4,672,661 to Clark et al. which discloses a card-like device having a strip of magnetic material with magnetically encoded number information. Upon insertion of the device into a modified telephone apparatus equipped with a magnetic reader, the telephone apparatus can retrieve encoded numbers on the magnetic strip number. In this type of a device the card serves again merely to store data and is not by itself capable of generating signals understood by the telephone line. Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 4,266,102 to Stanley et al. discloses an automatic dialer utilizing a device capable of reading a phone number of a business card and storing it in a memory, which later can be used for dialing. The device converts this information into a set of dial signals understandable by the telephone line.
Recently a variety of automatic telephone dialers have become commercially available. These dialers store one or more telephone numbers which are retrieved upon demand by the user, a set of DTMF (dual tone multi-frequency) tones through a speaker enclosed in the dialer being generated for a given number. (DTMF is a telephone standard for tone codes recognized as phone numbers dialed.) These dialers incorporate keyboard, speaker and an electrical circuit comprising a power supply and a chip containing multiple memories for storage of the telephone numbers and a DTMF tone generator. The chip memory is programmable from the keyboard by a sequence of keystrokes. The phone numbers are retrieved and dialed by pressing a sequence of keys on the keyboard.
Another dialer operating on a similar principle as the chip memory device noted above is also commercially available. This dialer contains an electronic watch with a built-in dialer. The memories and DTMF circuit are formed inside the chip together with circuitry for operation and control of the watch. This dialer contains memory sufficient for storage of multiple phone numbers, which can be programmed and retrieved from a keyboard enclosed with the dialer. This dialer, although small in size, is relatively expensive. The method of dialing a number in this dialer is complex and involves multiple keystrokes as well as scanning through menus on the liquid crystal display.
The prior art dialers set forth hereinabove, although satisfactory for most uses have serious disadvantages associated therewith. For example, the last devices noted with the exception of the watch/dialer are generally bulky and inconvenient to carry and, in addition, a series of buttons must be pressed to have the desired telephone number dialed. In the case of the watch dialer, observation of a liquid crystal display so that the correct menu is displayed is required; in addition, the watch/dialer automatic dialing sequence requires bringing the display side of the watch into close proximity to the receiver microphone, a relatively difficult task to accomplish if the watch/dialer is worn on the user's left wrist. In the case of devices disclosed in above mentioned patents, the dialer requires a reader device incorporated in the telephone apparatus to read data stored on an information bearing card, with the attendant increase in system cost and complexity.